A 71-year-old man was arrested Friday for allegedly starting a fire in Northern California that destroyed more than 125 homes near Yosemite National Park, authorities said.
Edward Fredrick Wackerman, of Mariposa, is accused of starting last year’s destructive Oak Fire in the Sierra Nevada.
He was arrested on multiple felony charges including suspicion of aggravated arson, arson that causes great bodily injury, and arson causing damage or destruction of inhabited structures, the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday afternoon. Details on what led to the arrest have not been provided.
The fire, first reported on July 22, injured three firefighters, destroyed 127 homes and 66 outbuildings, and burned over 19,000 acres (30 square miles) of vegetation, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It was only fully contained on Aug. 10.
Around 6,000 people were told to flee their homes as the massive fire engulfed parts of Mariposa County.
Wackerman was identified as the person responsible for igniting the fire through an extensive and multi-agency investigation, according to Jaime Williams, a spokesperson for Cal Fire’s Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit.
His arrest was the result of a collaborative effort that included Cal Fire, the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, the county’s district attorney’s office, California state authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Williams said.
The Oak Fire was one of several “significant wildfires” fires that swept through California in 2022, according to Cal Fire.
Besides Mariposa County’s wildfire, fire officials also singled out the McKinney Fire in Siskiyou County, which caused four fatalities, along with the Mosquito Fire in Placer and El Dorado counties, the state’s largest wildfire in 2022, which burned more than 76,000 acres (119 miles) between Sept. 7 and Oct. 22.